O’Malley Seeks to Clarify Remark on Obama’s Economic Record

Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley, seen here in a television appearance on Feb. 26, 2012, sought to clarify remarks after Republicans seized on his answer to a question about whether Americans are better off
after four years of Barack Obama’s presidency. Photographer: Chris Usher/CBS News via Getty Images

Sept. 3 (Bloomberg) -- Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley
sought today to clarify his remarks after Republicans seized on
his answer to a question about whether Americans are better off
after four years of Barack Obama’s presidency.

“The Bush recession cost us a lot of jobs,” O’Malley said
in an interview today in Charlotte, North Carolina, where
Democrats will start their national convention tomorrow. “While
we have not yet recovered all of the jobs lost, we are making
progress. We are creating jobs rather than losing jobs and home
foreclosures are lower than before the president took office.
Clearly, our country is becoming stronger, not weaker.”

O’Malley was among the surrogates appearing on yesterday’s
television talk shows on behalf of Obama. Asked on CBS’s “Face
the Nation” whether people are better off today than they were
four years ago, O’Malley replied: “No.”

The governor went on to say, “But that’s not the question
of this election. The question -- without a doubt, we are not as
well off as we were, before George Bush brought us the Bush job
losses, the Bush recession, the Bush deficits, the series of
desert wars, charged for the first time to the national credit
card.”

‘Good Old Days’

Ryan, a Wisconsin congressman, returned today to the
question Ronald Reagan raised in his 1980 presidential campaign.

“The president can say a lot of things, and he will, but
he can’t tell you that you’re better off,” Ryan said during a
campaign stop in Greenville, North Carolina. “Simply put, the
Jimmy Carter years look like the good old days compared to where
we are right now.”

Obama campaign spokeswoman Jen Psaki said the president had
improved the lot of Americans compared with where they were
under his predecessor.

“Are the American people better off than they were in
September 2008 when we were losing 432,000 jobs a month?” Psaki
told reporters traveling today with Obama to New Orleans. “I
would say yes. Is there more we need to do? Absolutely.”

O’Malley, who is chairman of the Democratic Governors
Association, said today he wasn’t saying that Obama’s policies
had made Americans worse off. “It wasn’t the first time, it
won’t be the last time, that people have thrown a word splice
back at me,” he said.

The governor said he and other surrogates have talked with
Obama campaign officials about how to discuss improvements in
the economy at a time when many Americans are still suffering.

“We all talked about it,” he said. “It’s how can we more
clearly articulate the fact that we have been making progress.
We’re all trying to find the clearest and most honest way to
articulate the reality we’re sharing.”

To contact the reporter on this story:
Jonathan D. Salant in Charlotte, North Carolina,
at jsalant@bloomberg.net.